AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 1

Periodic Events

Sun 7:00 p.m. Travis ARES net 147.36 MHz + (131.8) Sun 8:00 p.m. Travis ARES Packet (*in UNPROTO) 145.73 MHz Sun 8:00 p.m. Williamson ARES net 146.64 MHz - (162.2) Sun 9:00 p.m. ARO Swapnet 146.94 MHz - (107.2) Sun (After Swapnet) Newsline 146.94 MHz - (107.2) Mon. 7:30 p.m. STX ARES Net 3.873 MHz Tues. 7:30 p.m. Hays ARES net 147.100 MHz + Tues. 8:00 p.m. Bastrop ARES Net 443.750 MHz + (114.8) Wed 11:30 a.m. Ham Social Luncheon, Jim’s 146.94 MHz - (107.2) Thu 9:00 p.m. 2m SSB Net 144.250 MHz (USB) Thu 11:00 a.m. Lunch, Pokey Joe’s 183&Great Hills 444.1 MHz+ Thu 11:45 a.m. Lunch, Whataburger Oltorf & Burleson 146.94- (107.2) Fri 8:00 p.m. 6m SSB Net 50.230 (texasvhf.org/) Sat 7:00 - 8:30a.m. Breakfast @ Waterloo Ice House 444.1 MHz + Sat 9:00 a.m. Chapter 67 QCWA QSO Net. 3.920 MHz LSB Sat 7:00 p.m. AARC Elmer Net 146.94 MHz- (107.2) Daily 6:30 p.m. Central Texas Traffic Net 147.14 MHz+

ISSN 1067-0262

November 2017 Issue 11-2017

AARC OVER Keeping Austin Wireless

for Over 96 Years!

Bulletin of Austin Amateur Radio Club

Final Nominations & Voting It’s Election Time Again... This is your chance! All officer positions are available for nomina-tions. Incumbents may, or may not, decide to run for office again for 2018 (see Meeting Minutes for current indications from incum-

bents). The President is the leader who pre-sides over and sets the tone for the club meetings. Vice President rallies the troops to get technical presentations for the meetings. The VP will also stand in for the President when necessary (i.e. preside over meetings when the President is away). The Treasurer handles the finances for the club. Being good with numbers is kind

ARTICLES Ham Exam Results AllStar Link Network Club Info Over the WWWaves Christmas Party Main article (continued) NVIS Methods Featured Hamfest Meeting Minutes (May) AARC Meeting info, Meetings, Calendar, Upcoming Exams

Page(s) 2

3-4 5 6 “ 7 “ 8 9

10 “ “

(continued on page 7)

In This Issue

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 2

Ham Radio Exams Results

The following are the results of the ARRL VE test session held on October 14, 2017 at Bethany United Methodist Church: Technician Class Licenses Processed Robert F. Averyt KG5VKE Alma C. Cortez KG5VKL Vivek P. Desai KG5VKO Bretton B. Holmes KG5VKJ Robert M. Hunsaker KG5VKQ Rishi V. Jariwala KG5VKP Dillan A. McDonald KG5VKM Roshan P. Nair KG5VKN John W. Pelath KG5VKH Travis R. Piccolin KG5VKG Sankarsh R. Rao KG5VKF Guillaume J Uys KG5VKK General Class Licenses Processed Andrew J. D Addisio KG5VKI Randelle C. Stephenson KG5VCT Extra Class Licenses Processed Andrew R. Malota KF5WOR Examiners Participating in this Test Session Gene Hinkle K5PA Joe Makeever W5HS Jim Matthews KG5QFD Henry Palmeter W3JMY Jim Peisker AF5NP Donald Sitze AF6VA

Next ARRL VE Test Sessions November 4th - Bethany United Methodist Church, Disciple Bldg. Room 203/204 December 2nd - Bethany United Methodist Church, Disciple Bldg. Room 203/204 TNX ES 73 DE W5HS Joe 10-22-17 The South Austin W5YI VE team heartily congratulates the following people who earned new or upgraded amateur ra-dio licenses at our October 21st session: General Class Robert Singleton, KG5VCX

Technician Class (NEW) William Paiz-Tabash Robert Gibbs Chris Barton Kendall Whitbeck Austin Gray Nicole Vieger Jackson Tiller Joe Worley Norbert Rickert Kayvon Khosrowpour Sahar Rashed Allison Crow

Examiners Participating in this Test Session Craig Bean AC5KW Bill Duke, AF5JD Gary Popp AE5JR David Glosson, N5DPG

Our next two amateur radio exam sessions will start at 2 PM on November 18th and December 16th in Fleck Hall, room 118 on the campus of St. Edward’s University. All sessions are walk-in and the exam fee is $14.

For additional information regarding our amateur radio examination sessions, please contact Craig, AC5KW at (512) 474-6443 or by e-mail to AC5KW ARRL.net

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 3

AllStar Link Network

DE WA5YZD (Roy) The 444.2 and 1292.4 UHF repeaters sponsored by AARC are both in the AllStar network. The network offers the ability to dynamically expand coverage to other repeaters and nodes connected to AllStar and other type of Voice over IP based networks. For more information on AllStar use the link https://allstarlink.org/about.html to learn more. The network our 444.2 repeater is connected to looks like this:

This network arrangement can be changed in times of need to include or exclude any other AllStar node that will ac-cept connections. Go to any of the repeaters shown on the chart above and you will be heard on all of other connect-ed repeaters. Don’t forget to set your tone. Get tone information at http://www.txvhffm.org/ for repeaters coordinat-ed in Texas.

(continued on page 4)

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 4

(continued from page 3) The network our 1292.4 repeater is most often connected to other nodes for a network that looks like this:

The network above is the nationwide “900 Mhz.” network. It is used by Hams all over the country to discuss and im-prove the technical side of microwave and UHF communications systems. If you would like to improve your technical skills and talk with other Hams that share interest in VoIP and other tech-nical subjects this is the place to go. Roy Walker WA5YZD ARRL.NET

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 5

Austin Amateur Radio Club, Inc., PO BOX 4739, AUSTIN TX 78765-4739 / Web site: http://www.austinhams.org 2017 Officers President James Hollan KG5SGR president austinhams.org Vice President Lew Thompson W5IFQ vice-president austinhams.org Treasurer Jay Hoffman KA5OST treasurer austinhams.org Secretary Angie Steelman KF5ZXI secretary austinhams.org Editor, AARCOVER, website Michael Skurka K5MSK editor austinhams.org Technical (Repeater Contact) Roy Walker WA5YZD wa5yzd arrl.net ARRL Travis Co. Emer. Coord. Kerby Spruiell KG5DLD ec austinhams.org TC ARES PIO Steven Polunsky W5SMP tcares-pio gmail.net Please contact a club officer, attend a meeting, or mail us to join the organization. Sorry… Online membership registration is temporarily unavailable.

The Austin Amateur Radio Club, Inc. (AARC) has annual membership dues of $20.00 per person or $30.00 per family. AARC maintains the following repeaters:

FREQUENCY USE 146.780/ -600kH 2m D-STAR Repeater [W5KA C] 146.880 107.2 PL Tone Analog/Digital Fusion 146.940 107.2 PL Tone Most popular, TCARES WXnet, Swapnet 224.800 444.100 444.200 107.2 PL Tone 440.650 +5 70cm D-STAR Repeater [W5KA B] 1293.100/-20 23cm D-STAR Repeater[W5KA A] 1248.200 23cm D-STAR DD (data, simp./reversible) [W5KA A] Persons using the repeaters are asked to join the club to help support these valuable resources. Note: No AARC repeater has autopatch capability any longer.

The Austin Amateur Radio Club offers annual scholarships to licensees living in Travis, Williamson, Bastrop, Hays, Blanco, Caldwell, and Burnet counties. Please see http://austinhams.org/scholarships for more information.

AARCOVER Information: ISSN 1067-0262, CODEN AAOVE3. ©Austin Amateur Radio Club, Inc.

Published monthly by the Austin Amateur Radio Club, Inc.

Viewpoints expressed in the AARCOVER do not necessarily reflect those of the club, or of its members,

directors, or officers. Material quoted from the ARRL Letter is supplied by the American Radio Relay

League, Inc.

Members and other readers are encouraged to submit material for publication. Contact the Editor, if mailed

submissions are required. Email and/or electronic files are encouraged! Submissions may be edited for publi-

cation (for content and/or space). Deadline is the 25th of each month, but late articles may be considered for

future publication. Material may be used in a later issue. Unless otherwise noted, permission is granted to

reprint AARCOVER articles, provided you credit the original author and the AARCOVER. If material is in-

cluded in another publication, a courtesy copy to the Editor is appreciated.

AARC Members:

For Changes in your ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER or CALL SIGN

Contact: Jay Hoffman, KA5OST / ka5ost arrl.net

Jay handles all changes for membership information.

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 6

Over the WWWaves…

REMINDER The Austin Amateur Radio Club offers annual scholarships to licensees living in Travis, Williamson, Bastrop, Hays, Blanco, Caldwell and Burnet counties.

First Book of E https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2519569W/The_boys'_first_book_of_radio_and_electronics DE Rick, K5FNI

Advanced Semiconductor Analyser with Curve Tracing I saw this mentioned today. It looks very interesting for those who use solid state components in building or design. Especially if they have ever used a curve tracer before. http://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/dca75-dca-pro.html DE Rick, K5FNI

Trove of magazine archives Electronic experimenters will be especially interested in the section in this on “Technical: Con-sumer Electronics - Modern Era”. (The rest is meant for other audiences.) http://www.americanradiohistory.com/index.htm DE Rick, K5FNI

D-Star One Small Satellite Undergoes Final Tests D-Star One will be the first private LEO communication CubeSat as well as the first German commercial Cu-beSate. It will host four communication modules with D-Star capability, two of which will be fully dedicated to the amateur radio community. German Orbital Systems and iSky Technology companies have completed the final tests of the D-Star One small satellite’s systems successfully and arranged its shipment to the launch site. The satellite was designed and built in cooperation with iSky Technology, a commercial partner from the Czech Republic. Read more at http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/press-releases/successful-final-tests-d-star-one-small-satellite/#ceOqzptZIBsVtciK.99 DE Michael, K5MSK

DECEMBER Christmas Party! As is the custom of AARC, there will be no business meeting in December.

Instead, the AARC Christmas Party will be held at: Buffet King - in Capital Plaza

5451 N IH 35 Austin TX 78723

Watch the austinhams.org website and SwapNet Newsletter for more details soon!

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 7

of important for this job! And finally, the Secretary takes and prepares the minutes for the meetings, and then sends them to the Editor of this newsletter for publishing every month. All officers meet every month, pri-or to the start time of the general meeting.

These are all volunteer positions for which the past and current officers have donated their time for the benefit of the club and its members. Yes. They do it all for you without any remuneration (that’s means money paid for a service). Your ap-preciation and thanks are their rewards.

Please join us as we need a quorum of at least 10% of the general voting member-ship to finalize the nominations and for the election of officers!

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1)

Everything you may need to know about NVIS methods I was tipped off that a really comprehensive paper exists on NVIS, from its inception, up to the present. You have to Goggle search for the paper (which has 128 citations); by its title: "Radio Communication via Near Vertical Incidence Skywave Propagation: An Overview" The publication was in "Telecommunication System Journal", but Google would not produce a specific link to that mag-azine. Yet, using the paper's title; it presented several links and the one closest to the title proved the correct one. Both authors work in Europe. The male author formerly worked for several international broadcasters. (Really high power rigs). The female author is a distinguished PhD. graduate of a European University with an extensive RF back-ground. Several notable hams had their work listed in the citations. One was Brian Austin, whose G call escapes me, but he wrote on NVIS and its implication in the Battle of Arnhem (Netherlands), during WW2. The Allies were trying to use ra-dios not equipped for horizontal antennas, and too low power to be effective, even though the coastal area they were invading was typical coastal land. Some citations were for recent listings on NVIS in "QST". The printout consumes 15 pages of paper but it is worth it. -Stuart Rohre K5KVH The paper itself is released as open access at this web address: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11235-017-0287-2. See the copyright statement at the bottom. From this page you can also download a PDF by clicking the offer near the upper right corner. (Direct link to PDF for convenience: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11235-017-0287-2.pdf -Ed.) It is a good paper. 73 de NG5V / Rick Kirchhof

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 8

Do you have any news, events, interesting links or articles for the AARCover? We’d be thrilled if you’d send them to editor austinhams.org

for consideration to be published in a future AARCover!

Featured EVENT

THE WORLD'S GREATEST FREE SHOW ON EARTH!!! WE WILL RAFFLE 15 RADIOS OFF PLUS OTHER PRIZES!!!

Saturday, November 11, 2017 Harahan Lions Club Building

Located at 1001 Hickory Ave, Harahan LA 70123 ●●● The TABLES are FREE ●●●

●●● The ADMISSION is FREE ●●● ●●● The PARKING is FREE ●●●

●●● Tailgating is FREE ●●●

Sponsored by the Crescent City Amateur Radio Group, Inc. REMEMBER, ONE MAN'S JUNK IS ANOTHER MAN'S TREASURE...

Ladies/Wives are welcome to sell jewelry and crafts, etc.

Talk-in will be 146.82 repeater, PL Tone 114.8 Hz "Bring your old radios, antennas, tubes, computers and electronic parts, etc."

We recommend that you reserve your tables now. To reserve tables, contact Joe at 504-288-7084 or email

him at Joen5ozg hotmail.com or Eric at af5jg outlook.com Setup will be 5:00-7:00pm on November 10, and 7:00am to 8:00am on November 11.

Doors open 8:00am to 1:00pm on November 11, 2017.

COME VISIT US AT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE TO FIND OUT THE LATEST NEWS ON OUR HAM FEST... https://www.facebook.com/groups/2044282109131267/

Coffee, Soft Drinks and Donuts will be served for a small charge... Don't forget the forums and the VE Exam Session

For more information contact Joe at 504-288-7084 or email him at Joen5ozg hotmail.com

or contact Steve at n5wxc hotmail.com

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 9

AARC General Meeting, October 3, 2017

Start time: 7:03pm Attendance: ? No visitors. No new hams. No new upgrades. September minutes were approved as posted in the AARCover.

Announcements Preliminary nominations are being taken tonight. President, Vice President, and Treasurer indicated they would be willing to run as incumbents. It was encouraged that new officers be elected every year to help reduce burn-out of individuals and to keep ideas

fresh. The Christmas Party committee needs a chair. Current members include, but are not limited to, Jeff Schmidt, Ange-

la Durbin. Help is needed! ARL requires all visitors to sign out. You don't need to be exact (use the date above your line), but please do sign

out! There was discussion on encouraging recruitment of young licensees.

○ K5EJL talked about the high school club. ○ Mentors are needed for new hams. ○ Boy Scouts have a merit badge available and SOTA is a great opportunity to encourage the youth.

Please send other info to editor (at) austinhams.org to combine and post on the AustinHams website. (No further info received to date. –Editor)

Officer Reports Treasurer: Jay Hoffman, KA5OST - Will be representing at Belton Ham Expo, having a table from one estate with

equipment to be sold. 50% to go to the estate and 50% to the AARC. Vice-President: Lew Thompson, W5IFQ - Tonight's guests are from Austin Energy. Next month: ALE - Automatic

Link Establish: Auto-QSY so cluster HF stations stay in contact. Secretary: Angie Steelman, KF5ZXI - not present Newsletter: Michael Skurka, K5MSK - Thanks to K5FNI for being the best submitter for the newsletter. ARES: Kirby Spruiell, KG5DLD - Our Simulated Emergency Test (SET) has been moved to October 14. The SET will

involve stations at several locations performing vehicle counts and relaying the info to designated relay station(s). Technical Committee: Roy Walker, WA5YZD - AARC has two new Fusion DR2X repeaters. Frequencies are

441.1MHz and 146.88MHz. There is a rebate of approximately $400 "core charge" to keep the old repeaters. K5EJL moved to pay the core charge to keep the old repeaters. W5IFQ (Lew) seconded. A vote was called. The vote was unanimous with no dissenting votes. TSU has a new repeater on 442.7 MHz, tone 103.5.

Space Weather presentation by W5IFQ. Business meeting adjourned at 8:04pm. Presentation by Austin Energy, RF Interference Investigation. Presenters were Tri Tran and Chris Sahley. Presentation concluded by 8:45pm. Respectfully submitted, Michael Skurka, K5MSK

AARCOVER : 11-2017 Page 10

2017+ Calendar of Events

Upcoming Meetings...

Nov. Dec. Austin Meetings/Happenings Time Address

7 5 AARC Meeting @ Applied Research Lab 7:00 p.m. 10000 Burnet Rd

28 26 Travis County A.R.E.S. @ Applied Rsrch Lab 7:00 p.m. 10000 Burnet Rd

- - CERT Meeting @ TBD (see Link / Contact) 7:00 p.m. TBD (CERT appears to not have meetings in November/December due to holidays. Next meeting Jan. 25.)

27 25? CTDXCC Meeting @ Old Quarry Library 6:30 p.m. 7051 Village Ctr Dr (Probably a safe bet that CTDXCC won’t meet on Christmas Day!)

If your club is listed here and has incorrect time or dates, please let us know! editor austinhams.org

Visit our website at http://austinhams.org/

Upcoming Amateur Exams: 2017

ARRL VEC - Nov. 4th & Dec. 2nd 9 a.m. at Bethany United Methodist Church.

Room 203/204. $15 fee. For more info, contact: Joe Makeever, W5HS (512-345-0800)

W5YI VEC - Nov. 18th & Dec. 16th 2 p.m. in Room 118, Fleck Hall, St. Edwards University. $14 fee.

Contact Craig AC5KW ARRL.net

for more info. $14 fee.

AARC Meeting Info Tuesday, Nov 7, 2017 / 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Location: Applied Research Lab 10000 Burnet Road, Austin TX

Presentation Topic: HF Automatic Link Establishment

Solar WX: W5IFQ (Lew)

Officers Meeting

Officers meet from 6:00 to 7:00p.m. prior to regular club meeting and is open to all. Contact an officer for more information.

Nov 11 - Greater New Orleans Ham Fest Harahan Lions Club Building, 1001 Hickory Avenue, Harahan, LA. Table reservations - contact Eric at af5jg outlook.com or Joe at 504-288-7084 or Joen5ozg hotmail.com http://www.facebook.com/groups/2044282109131267/

Dec 10 - Decker Challenge 2017 Half-Marathon & Brown Santa 5K runs Need a dozen or so Hams w/HTs & mobiles to station around the course/Walter E Long Lake. APRS use is encouraged, but not required. NC, as always, will be at the Travis County Expo Center. It’s an early race, so please meet at NC by 7:00am. Usually done and gone by 1:00pm (sooner depending on where you are stationed). Contact Jim K5KTF.com to sign up to work this fun race. (Please don’t wait until the last minute to let him know you are interested. Give him time to plan you in!) Did we mention they usually have breakfast tacos/donuts/coffee in the morning, and free craft beers after?!

Jan 6-7 - 16th Annual Bandera 25k, 50k, and 100k Ultra-Marathon Location: Hill Country State Natural Area - Bandera County The team is responsible for communications, health and wel-fare, tracking, and occasionally Search and Rescue. Also man-age parking at o’dark thirty to get the 900 runners and crews to the start/finish line on time. Little to NO cellular coverage. Partic-ipants, families, crews and promoters rely on the skill and exper-tise of the Amateur Radio Community. Interested operators should contact the Communications Safety Team Coordinator: Louis, K5STX at k5stx10 gmail.com or call 830-305-2889. (More info in SwapNet Newsletter.)

Feb 3, 2018 Basic & Advanced SkyWarn Training

27th Annual Lou Withrow Austin and South Central SkyWarn Training. 9:00am-4:00pm Saturday. DE Troy Kimmel KE5BCK Location: Austin Community College, Eastview Campus, Austin

More events listed in the SWAPNET Newsletter! Visit http://austinhams.org/swapnet